


misericorde

by jaqhad (kyrilu)



Category: Star Wars: Doctor Aphra (Comics)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28214781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/jaqhad
Summary: After a mission for the Alliance, Sana runs into Tolvan again.
Relationships: Sana Starros & Magna Tolvan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	misericorde

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



> Set sometime after the skirmish aboard Accresker Jail but before the plot to assassinate Emperor Palpatine and the events leading up to Hoth.

It’s been a hell of a run. A high speed chase with Imps on her tail, hours of jumping through hyperspace to give them the runaround, and Sana’s beat. 

“Bacta’s in the back,” she says, stretching, as she disembarks in the docking boy at Trading Post Sheung-tak. Droids lumber up the ramp, metal joints clicking and clacking. “It’s all there!” she calls out to them. “I counted this time.” 

“Just trying to keep everything on track for the move,” says a human officer that Sana doesn’t recognize. His datapad pings, and he nods his head. “Your credits will be sent within the hour. You’re free to grab some rations.”

“Yeah, I know the drill. Keep my mouth shut. Erase all traces of this place from my ship’s banks. It’s fine. I’m vouched for.” 

“Good,” he says brusquely, and he moves on, following the droids who are toting the crates retrieved from her ship. 

Five crates of bacta snatched en route to an Imperial warehouse. Five crates that could now go toward saving rebel and civilian lives instead of stormtroopers. Five crates that also could spell out a death sentence if she’d been caught, but Sana Starros will, and always be, a damn good smuggler. 

She drifts toward the mess. She doesn’t recognize many faces. It’s not that she expected Han, Luke, or Leia to be here; they’re out gallivanting around doing who knows what. Besides, she’s aware that she occupies a nebulous place in the Alliance. Not a soldier, but an ally and mercenary on holodial. ( _You’re a colonel now?_ she’d laughed at Han, after they’d sought her help after that Mako-Ta mess.) 

It doesn’t seem like dinner’s ready, so she finds herself wandering further down the hallway and peeking through doorways. Empty meeting rooms, sleeping quarters filled with cots and hammocks, a laundry room, rebels hunched over a game of sabacc…

Sana’s about to join the last until she sees a plume of white hair like a pylat bird. 

Tolvan. Aphra’s pet Imperial. She’s turning around the corner, long brown coat rustling behind her, metal gleaming from her cybernetic neck and arms. 

“So you really stuck around, huh?” Sana says, leaning against the wall. 

Tolvan looks surprised to see her. “Starros,” she says, with a stiff nod.

During the flight from Accresker Jail, Sana hadn’t known whether she should congratulate Tolvan or chew her out for killing Aphra before Sana had the chance.

“Where--?” Sana had asked. “Dead,” Tolvan had said, hollow. “It was-- I did it.” Sana had started in shock, because Aphra was one of the girls, one of those thieves who seemed like she would live forever. Stole yet another artifact; pissed off yet another important person; infuriatingly and tauntingly elusive.

Well, she’d finally pissed off the wrong girl this time around. Now, Sana gives Tolvan a wry smile. “How are you holding up? The rebels putting you to work?” 

“It’s classified.” 

Sana lets out an exasperated noise. “I’m not demanding the full mission details. Just asking. They’re putting me to work, too. I’ve been running some supplies from time to time.” 

“I see,” Tolvan replies. Her tone has slightly warmed, and Sana notes: She looks tired. Dark circles underneath her eyes and her brow wrinkled with pressure. 

With a sigh, Sana says, “I’ve got some booze stashed on my ship. Want to share? I don’t imagine that the Alliance are giving you guys the good stuff.” 

“We manage,” Tolvan says, “but I suppose --” A moment of hesitation. Then: “All right.”

* * *

So, that brings them to Tolvan’s captain’s quarters, a bottle of Tevraki whiskey between them. Through transparisteel, Tolvan’s got a nice view of the fields outside: rippling plains of gold and green encased within the station’s dome while stars shine above and around. 

Sana’s perched on the window sill, watching it all. The whiskey goes to her head and her chest, but it’s a warm buzz, not a drunken haze. 

“No matter where I go, I can never really get used to this,” Sana says. “Everything is so small and empty. I grew up on Nar Shaddaa, which is - you know.” She makes a vague gesture. 

“I’ve never been,” Tolvan says, with a shake of her head. “But I’ve heard the stories. I imagine it must have been very different.” 

Sana snorts. “You can say that.” She takes a sip of the whiskey. “Where are you from, anyway? I doubt the Imperials grew you out of the ground.”

“Kuat.”

It doesn’t register at first. Turning, catching the glint of Tolvan’s cybernetics, it hits her: “Oh. Kriff. You were--?”

“I was."

“Kriff,” Sana says again. “And you’re here?”

“I like to think it gives me a wider perspective than most,” Tolvan says mildly. “I’m not an idiot, Starros. I know the costs of war and rebellion.” 

“And I thought _I_ was crazy,” Sana says. She can’t help the sharp laugh that bursts from her throat.

Stars. _Kuat._ Even Sana’s heard of the Taungsday Tragedy, a radical rebel cell bombing an Imperial shipyard that had a blast radius for miles. The Empire had put the propaganda on blast after that, holos of workers and civilians climbing out of debris. Sana wonders if Tolvan had been one of those kids she'd seen. 

A frown curves Tolvan’s mouth when she notices Sana’s gaze. “Starros, I’ve sworn to serve Senator Mon Mothma and the rest of High Command. I’ve proven myself on numerous missions. I don’t hate the Alliance. Life is… too complicated for that.” 

“Because you can’t go back to the Empire.” 

“Because I don’t want to go back,” Tolvan returns. “There’s a difference.” 

“I guess so,” Sana says, with a shrug of her shoulders. “But you don’t hate the Empire, either, do you? You’re just fighting them because you’re on the rebels’ side now.” 

Tolvan narrows her eyes. “They’re the enemy. I know what they’re capable of more than anyone.” 

“So do I,” Sana shoots back. “I hate the Empire. I can say that easily. Without any complications.” 

She didn’t expect to feel this heated. Maybe it’s the whiskey thrumming through her. Maybe it’s the fact that she has nightmares of those stormtroopers and their torture droid. Time and time again, she has screamed herself awake and alone, feeling the pain again, no one to save her. 

Sana has never wanted a life like this. She wanted books and expeditions. She wanted to sit in the sunlight, a sharp-tongued smiling girl with her head on her lap, her dark hair splayed like ink on a canvas. 

But things never go the way that you want it to. This mercenary life had called to her, and she’d chosen it willingly and eagerly. Chelli wasn’t ‘the one’ in any meaning of the word, and she’d taken her own path and double-crossed Sana on a job for good measure.

And here she is, having a heart-to-heart with another one of Chelli’s heartbreaks. Except she had killed Chelli -- except she had been a soldier for the Empire that's tortured Sana and wrecked worlds -- and it _is_ complicated; it’s a disaster. 

Tolvan isn’t saying anything and pours herself more whiskey. Sana understands the sentiment, and she finishes downing her own glass. 

Sana musters up the courage to say: “Look, this isn’t completely about Aphra. This is about something else. My own baggage. I had a run-in with a SCAR squad. It’s -- whatever.” 

“Oh,” Tolvan says. “Nasty sons of a gundark. No finesse.” 

“Exactly.” 

They finish the bottle. Sana finds herself half-drowsing against the window sill, fingers tapping against the stars through glass. She murmurs, “I wish Chelli were here. Would’ve made us laugh."

“She would’ve burned down the entire base and stolen every officer's medals.” 

“That, too." 


End file.
